Short Summary

President Ferdinand Marcos said on Monday (3 February) he had ordered his military forces in the southern Philippines to defend their positions against Moslem rebel attacks without going on the offensive.

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President Ferdinand Marcos said on Monday (3 February) he had ordered his military forces in the southern Philippines to defend their positions against Moslem rebel attacks without going on the offensive.

The President told newsmen after meeting military commanders at a camp near Manila that the status quo in the southern Philippine islands of Mindanao, Sulu and Tawi Tawi would be maintained to provide "a clear atmosphere for negotiations we are holding with the Mora National Liberation Front."
The negotiations in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, were adjourned last January after President Marcos rejected a rebel demand for a separate Moslem state with a separate army for Moslem areas in the south.

President Marcos said the talks would resume in April, if not in Jeddah, perhaps in an unnamed Asian country.

At the meeting, Mr. Marcos asked the Air Force for verification of a recent foreign news report claiming that the Philippine armed forces had used napalm bombs on the rebels.

Brig-General Ernesto Bueno informed the President that only once, early in 1973, an incendiary bomb was used.

The President directed the armed forces "not to use it, even if you have it now."